morocco & spain

Behind them lay the makeshift campgrounds where they had spent months living rough, waiting for the right moment to climb the six-metre, razorwire fence lying between them and their dream of making it to Europe. In front of them lay an immaculately groomed golf course complete with white-clad golfers teeing off.

The two radically different realities, just metres apart, was what greeted a dozen or so migrants caught on the triple fence that marks the border between Spain’s north African enclave of Melilla and Morocco on Wednesday. After 200 had tried to scale the fence, Spain’s interior ministry said 20 people had made it to the enclave and another 70 remained perched on top of the fence for several hours.

1. Syrian refugee family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan, next to the Temporary Centre for Immigrants in the Spanish enclave of Melilla, Spain. (Santi Palacios/AP Photo)

2. An Iraqi family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Baghdad, Iraq. (Karim Kadim/AP Photo)

3. A Sudanese family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan on the outskirts of Khartoum, Sudan. (Abd Raouf/AP Photo)

4. Malaysian Muslim family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Vincent Thian/AP Photo)

5. The Hammami family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in the Bardo neighborhood near the Tunisian capital, Tunis.(Aimen Zine/AP Photo)

6. The Aazzab family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Casablanca, Morocco.(Abdeljalil Bounhar/AP Photo)

7. A family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Sydney, Australia. (Rob Griffith/AP Photo)

8. An Iranian Muslim family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Tehran, Iran. (Vahid Salemi/AP Photo)

9. A family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Istanbul, Turkey.(Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

10.A family waiting to break their fast, top, and their meal, bottom, during the holy month of Ramadan in Nairobi, Kenya. (Sayyid Azim/AP Photo)

Migrants drink water as they sit on Spanish soil after jumping a metallic fence that divides Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. Spain says around 700 African migrants have rushed the barbed wire border fences and although police repelled most, 140 managed to enter Spanish territory. (Fernando Garcia/AP)

Foxes loitering around rubbish bins and pigeons roosting in train
stations: urban animals are widely regarded as the dregs of the natural
world.

However, according to biologist Simon Watt, cities represent some of the world’s hotspots for evolution
and behavioural adaptation. Speaking at the Cheltenham science
festival, Watt, who is founder of the Ugly Animal Preservation Society,
said: “The ice caps are melting, the rainforest is shrinking, the one environment that is growing is cities. If we’re going to look for evolutionary shifts right now in our world, the place to look is cities.”

In his talk, Watt cited a host of examples of how the urban
environment is prompting new genetic shifts and unexpected behaviours. A
proportion of black cap warblers, which used to migrate to Morocco or
southern Spain, have shifted their route to Britain where urban heat
islands and garden bird feeders allow them to survive at more northerly
latitudes than was previously possible.

“The ones that come to Britain are starting to get shorter wings –
better for manoeuvrability, worse for long flights – and longer beaks,
which are better to get through the wee bars of garden bird feeders,
although worse for things like fruits and berries.”

Birds in cities often sing at a higher pitch, perhaps to be better heard against higher levels of background noise.
Photograph: Sue Tranter RSPB Images/PA Wire